Former home of Xerox in Gloucestershire sold for £48.25m

By Nicky Godding

28 March 2024

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Forest of Dean thinks big Vantage Point Business Village

Sirius Real Estate, a leading owner and operator of business and industrial parks in the UK and Germany has acquired Vantage Point Business Village, a multi-let business park in Gloucestershire, for £48.25 million.

The acquisition represents the real estate company's first asset in the UK and the fourth asset in total acquired by Sirius this calendar year, following the purchases of business and industrial parks in Germany.

Through this purchase, Sirius will add more than 1.5 million sq ft of space to its BizSpace portfolio, of which over 1 million sq ft is industrial space.

The 60-acre business park at Mitcheldean was renowned first for manufacturing Rank projection equipment then as Rank Xerox's manufacturing hub between 1961 and 2003. It is 81 per cent occupied and offers a mixture of warehouse, production, storage, conventional and serviced office space to over 70 companies across 119 units.

Sirius has identified a number of opportunities to drive value by utilising its asset management platform to improve occupancy, income and service charge recovery.

As part of the acquisition, Sirius has also acquired a PV solar business from the vendor, Brian Bennett, which currently supplies most of the electricity to the site from panels installed on certain buildings, providing energy security and an attractive income stream.

It is close to other Sirius-owned sites, including Gloucester Barnwood and Gloucester Morelands.

Andrew Coombs, Chief Executive Officer of Sirius Real Estate, said: "This sizeable strategic acquisition is transformational for our UK BizSpace platform, and increases its portfolio by more than 1.5 million sq ft. The 60-acre park generates strong day-one cash flow from a stable, diversified tenant base and offers various synergies with our existing assets in the local area. It also presents a number of value creation opportunities by driving both occupancy and rental income."

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.